A North Carolina Thanksgiving, From the Mountains to the Coast

For Gray Shipley, Thanksgiving was never one fixed tradition. It was two.

Growing up, his family alternated between his Shipley grandparents here on the farm in Vilas and his mother's family down east, just off the Intracoastal Waterway. Whichever side had Thanksgiving, the other side usually had Christmas.

So he grew up with two North Carolina Thanksgiving tables. In the mountains it was the food that came off the farm. On the coast it was the food that came out of the water: shrimp his granddad caught, flounder and fried fish, and his uncle's pulled pork barbecue.

What a North Carolina Thanksgiving table holds

• From the mountains. Beef and pork from the farm, herbs from the garden, and corn, potatoes and pumpkins when the garden cooperates.
• From the coast. Shrimp, flounder and fried fish.
• From everywhere in between. Pulled pork barbecue. Most North Carolina families will tell you which kind is the right kind.
• At breakfast. A sausage and egg casserole, if you are a Shipley.

Neither table followed a script. Gray says the day is about family first, always centered on food, and it adjusts to whichever side of the family you are with.

Who cooks at a Shipley Thanksgiving

These days Gray cooks as much as anybody when the family gets together. His mother does not cook for the whole crowd the way she once did, he says, but one dish still comes from her every year:

“But Mom's a very good cook and will often contribute casserole that her grandmother used to make, sausage and egg casserole, that's a standard at breakfast.”

Gray Shipley

His brothers-in-law cook too, and not always the traditional dishes. Gray says the point is good food and the family being together, not a fixed menu.

A sausage and egg casserole for Thanksgiving morning

We do not have her recipe to share, but this is the shape of the dish, and it is the easiest way to feed a full house before the big meal:

1. Brown a pound of pork sausage and drain it.
2. Butter a 9 by 13 inch dish and fill it with about six cups of cubed bread.
3. Scatter the sausage and two cups of shredded cheddar over the bread.
4. Whisk eight eggs with two cups of milk, a teaspoon of salt and some pepper, and pour it over.
5. Cover and refrigerate overnight.
6. Bake uncovered at 350°F for 45 to 55 minutes, until the center is set and reads 160°F.

Because it is assembled the night before, Thanksgiving morning only asks you to turn on the oven.

The part worth the trip

Asked what he looks forward to most, Gray said:

“What I look forward to the most is being with family, and we're at the point where a lot of family we don't see but once a year, or certainly not often enough.”

Gray Shipley

Asked what he quietly dreads, he named the hour before the meal: getting everybody to the table at the same time, before the food goes cold. It happens every year, he says. The fix is a menu built from dishes that can wait, and A Thanksgiving Menu for Beginners lays one out.

The farm has been in the family since 1872. The Shipley side of Gray's Thanksgiving is told in An Appalachian Thanksgiving on a Family Farm.